Zwiebelchen

Bruce, instead of going on about what is and what isn't feminism. How about answering my post like you said you would. Here's the full post. Bruce, you've described yourself as a feminist but I'm having a hard time reconciling how as a feminist you're okay with the sexualisation of NPCs in crps. Even more, you say this adds 'realism'. I'm guessing 'realism' in the sense of treating subject matter that presents a description of everyday life. Some points and this post is going to be quite long. And since you're heterosexual and are looking at female NPCs, I'll just focus on female NPCs . Games ask us to play with them. Now that may seem obvious, but bear with me. Game developers set up a series of rules and within those rules we are invited to test the mechanics to see what we can do, and what we can’t do. We are encouraged to experiment with how the system will react or respond to our inputs and discover which of our actions are permitted and which are not. The play comes from figuring out the boundaries and possibilities within the gamespace. So the developers have set up a series of possible scenarios involving sexualised female characters. Players are then invited to explore and exploit those situations during their play-through. The player cannot help but treat these female bodies as things to be acted upon, because they were designed, constructed and placed in the environment for that purpose. Interactive media has the potential to be a perfect medium to genuinely explore sex and sexuality. But that’s not what’s happening here. These interactions set up a transactional relationship in which women (NPCs) are reduced to a base sexual function. It frames female sexuality as something that belongs to others, rather than as something NPCs enjoy for themselves. I’d argue that none of this is really about sex at all, certainly nothing resembling authentic consensual intimacy; publishers and developers are instead selling a particular fantasy about male power centered on the control of women - at least in this example of female NPCs. This then leads into the dehumanisation caused by objectification, inevitably leads us to the concept of disposability, which is defined as “something designed for or capable of being thrown away after being used or used up”. Especially when you have multiple female sexualised NPCs that you can go from one to the other. Which means that these female NPCs fulfil basically the same function as items the player can purchase from stores. This is a textbook example of another component of objectification referred to as interchangeability. The player treats the 'object' as interchangeable with other 'objects' of the same type (eg. Female romanceable NPCs), and/or with objects of other types.” Since these NPCs serve an identical or nearly identical “resource” function within the game space. So what we have here is sexual objectification. The practice of treating or representing a female NPC as a thing or mere instrument to be used for another’s sexual purposes. Sexually objectified NPCs are valued primarily for their bodies, or body parts, which are presented as existing for the pleasure and gratification of others. You even admitted that you need to be physically attracted before a romance can start. This doesn't sound like realism to me. And since you call yourself a feminist, you're okay with sexualised NPCs in video games. This is just total bull****. NPCs are and always are just a projection of the actual idea behind them. This is true with all media, even in literature. You could call basicly every writer, male or female, discribing a female side character as a sexist that objectifies said character, simply because that character can never have a full-fledged background for reasons of consistent writing. A game as a highly interactive medium just can not create perfectly human side characters simply because even books can't do it. After all, NPC behaviour is just a collection of algorithms and scripts with written dialogues from a story-writer. There can and never will be a real interaction between the player and the NPC. But that isn't the point of an NPC. NPCs are meant to be a projection of the general idea behind it. Writing always creates a void that the players imagination fills out. This is why games are fun. The experience will always be different depending on how your mind fills out this void. This is why NPCs can not be objectified, because they are, by definition, just objects. However, this does not mean they are perceived as objects. A well-written romance story from a skilled writer allows players to fill the gap between an object and a real person with his imagination. An NPC will only be as objectified as your imagination allows it to be. If you see a female character as objectified because she wears a skimpy outfit, than it's your imagination that objectifies her because of that. Another player might see her as a women that likes to dress that way and feels it's fitting her character. There is no universal truth about if a female character is objectified or not just by the amount of clothing she is wearing. It's how you perceive that character that matters. Basicly, what that means is that you probably objectify these characters a lot more than someone who hasn't got the same perspective as you.

So... Do you want poe2/poe3 to have romances? If so, why? If not, why? Uhh, errr... I haven't thought about that yet, really. I'll take the easy approach here and say: if it's well written, then yes, if not, then no. If you need romance for the sake of having one, then it should clearly be left out. If you want to create a romance plot because it matches and enriches the character, then I'm perfectly fine with it. I enjoyed some of the romance options in Mass Effect. But I also disliked them at the same time. I felt that some romance options in ME were there only because "we have to include a same-gender romance option or people will be upset". The more I think about it, the more I like the reasoning of Obsidian behind not including romances in PoE. If you can't write a romance the way you would, simply because of fear of the media backlash, it's better not including it at all. Fans will make romance mods anyway, so sooner or later, the content is there.

This is just silly. Hiro, I gave you perfectly valid examples of why dressing a character as sexy doesn't have to be objectification or sexism only because a male did it - simply because females also do it. If you want to discuss semantics here and not the actual point, then fine. But I'm out.

Okay, fine. There are no female artists working at big gaming companies. You totally proved me wrong (without actually proving something, because the "link or it didn't happen" rule obviously does not apply to you). However, new claim: there's A LOT of female artists drawing females in a sexualized way. The prove is above. So how does that work with your conception of feminism and that all women don't like to see scandly clad women in games or art? If anything, YOU missed the point of this discussion by picking out the one thing that I could not instantly prove and ignoring all other arguments that have been proven up until this point by multiple people in this thread.

And you still haven't proved your claims. Not my problem that you make claims that you can't prove. And you said LOTS of females at big game companies. Not random artists on Devianart. So nice try to move the goal posts. It's not me who's being stupid. Does it matter where the artists work? Does that make the argument invalid? It doesn't change anything that there are LOTS of female artists who draw characters in a "sexualized" way. In fact, freelance artists on DeviantArt have even less incentive to create characters that appeal a mostly male audience. Just so that you can finally grasp your own stupidity and shut up about giving links: Here's some links to female artists displaying women as "sexualized" (in your book... I highly doubt they will understand their own *chauvinism*... lol) ... some of these artworks are so good that they could easily go as concept art for games. Oh, the second one actually IS working for a game company as concept artist. http://www.deviantart.com/art/Silvernai-Ivne-278183547 http://eventrue.deviantart.com/art/EOS-Goddess-of-Dawn-387206266 http://dalilithiel.deviantart.com/art/Naranja-210911313 http://sakimichan.deviantart.com/art/Tree-Light-193865475 http://kelly-nantes.deviantart.com/art/Ahri-League-of-Legends-Fanart-451301756 http://www.deviantart.com/art/Angel-of-Dragons-452693789 http://moni158.deviantart.com/art/Hope-192768275 http://keelerleah.deviantart.com/ http://nekochank.deviantart.com/art/Flavia02-Commission-152805204 http://selenada.deviantart.com/art/Kitiana-the-Vampire-245110299 http://www.deviantart.com/#/art/Commission-Damsel-Minigame-Recruits-469956056?hf=1 http://www.deviantart.com/art/now-469882407 EDIT: I am always impressed by the amount of professionality from the gals and guys on DeviantArt. EDIT2: Actually, after browsing DeviantArt, I noticed that almost all female artists that draw women (in painting style) draw them in a way that would qualify as "sexualized". At least over my 30 minutes search, I only found 2 female artists that drew girls or women in neutral non-sexual poses.

Okay, so you admit that your claim was false and misleading. I never claimed there were no female artists in the games industry. It was you who said there were LOTS of female artists working for big game companies who did enjoy sexualising female NPCs. Next time, try and tone down the false claims. Neither did I admit that nor did I ever say that there are female artists who "enjoy sexualising female NPCs". Don't put words in my mouth just because you are too stupid to understand the meaning of what I said. I said that a lot of female artists also enjoy making female character art that looks sexy. You might regard that as sexualising, because you are narrow-minded. They don't because not everyone who wears a skimpy outfit is automaticly "sexualized" (well, it is, but just for pseudo-feminists as you are). But just to prove you wrong (even if I don't have to, as you are clearly going for the "I don't need to have a proof, because everything I say is universal truth, but you sure do need proof, because your oppinion has less value than mine" approach: I will browse DeviantArt for female artists creating artworks of fantasy characters. Let's see if I can find women drawing skantly clad females. Don't worry, I will only list the artists starting with 'A', so the list won't have millions of entries...

Artists and Lead artists are one thing. Where does it state they enjoyed sexualising female NPCs? Oh yeah, of course. Because every artist always justifies his creations with a disclaimer message all the time. "Yes, I had fun creating this overly sexualized female NPC. Because I am a woman. Yes. Yes I do not believe in woman rights. Yes. No I didn't create this character because I thought it looked good and fits my art style. No, I am clearly dumb and made this because I was forced to. Yes, woman artists are enslaved. You need to free us! Help, we are getting enslaved by male artists!" That's what they all say. No seriously! To the rescue, fellow white-knights!

I edited my post with a link. And seriously, why should I bother representing you with links if you completely ignore all arguments anyway?

Yes I have been to schools and offices with young employees. What country are we talking about here? Clearly, in germany, women get oppressed and are forced to wear sexy clothes at their everyday life. Because oppression of women usually means they have to wear skimpy outfits. Oh, it's actually the opposite? Never mind then... It's always good when people don't provide any links or proof of their claims. Need to provide a link who designed the character and for the artist to admit they liked sexualising that character. Are you freakin' kidding me? I won't waste my time browsing the web just because you refuse to believe the reality? If you don't trust in my claims, I'm perfectly fine with that. But here, I will play your stupid game: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131993/women_in_games_the_gamasutra_20.php There's some women in this list being artists and lead artists even of games with what you would call "sexualized NPCs".

Pretty much all women I meet don't wear skimpy outfits and have their cleavage sticking out at me. Are you suggesting that's what happens in real life? Then you obviously have never been at schools or offices with young employees. Seriously, what teenage girls in schools wear is usually A LOT more revealing than the so called "sexualized NPCs". It's nothing special to see 13 year old girls with cleavage down to the belly button and mini skirts. And office ladies with pigtails and skirts that aren't much more than a girdle. In summer, you also see a lot of women dressed sexy walking down the streets. You even see girls clearly showing off their underwear with see-through clothing. Of course, this depends on where you live, but in europe and especially germany, people are a lot more open minded about sexy looks or sex in general. People and self-declared feminists imho should grow up and accept that a lot of women have a different oppinion about feminism. I can understand people complaining about unrealistic or non-pragmatic armor in a game (the infamous chainmail bikini). But there is no reason to bash games with NPCs in sexy clothing just because "clearly a man made that character model". Seriously, there are a LOT of female artists working at big game companies that design female characters in the same way men do. Because, surprise, even women sometimes enjoy seeing an attrative female character. And btw, men also enjoy seeing attractive male characters. They just won't admit it that freely. Many game protagonists are attractive in one way or another. No matter the gender. Of course you sometimes see a female character with a skirt or cleavage. Because that's what some women like to wear, surprise, surprise! Of course you won't see male characters wearing skirts or no upper clothing. Because that isn't what men usually do. De facto, the ratio of topless men in real life to topless men in games reveals way more sexualization of male characters than the ratio of skirt-wearing females in real life to skirt-wearing females in games. It's just way more common for a woman to wear sexy clothes than for a man to wear sexy clothes in real life. So games basicly just mirror that reality.

You say that as if there ever was a game he didn't tear apart. Btw, has anyone of you guys ever played the D&D 3rd edition based game Pool of Radiance? I thought that the first hour of this game was pretty strong (for a dungeon crawler), but as soon as you entered Myth Drannor, it became extremely boring with endless fights against the always same orcs and undead (especially as I can not manually select the feats in this game, the leveling was pretty dull aswell). I recently played this game again and there comes a point when you finally leave the dungeon again and ... suddenly the magic was back. Actually, I feel like I can recommend this game (for players that love tactical turn-based combat), but you need A LOT of patience.

I think some kind of formatted survey would be helpful, in a seperate forum. Something like: Selected class, selected talents, stat distribution. And then a short comment for each feat/talent/skill/ability/stat based on the class of the character and how you evaluated it's usefullness. Something like this: "Hard Penetration: --> Triggers only rarely, but when it does, the satisfaction is very high. I think the proc rate should be increased and satisfaction reduced to even it out more." "Length: --> Currently overpowered compared to thickness. The formula should be shifted more towards thickness and curvature."

A quote of Kaz, though it has been 2 years since then.

It has already been confirmed that there will be a fixed random seed for different aspects of the game so that a reload usually results in the same things unless you do something completely different. This is to avoid save-scumming: Failed a saving throw? Just reload. With a fixed random seed, the spell that hit you on your first attempt will also hit you on your reload attempt.

The holy trinity (tank, heal, dps) concept basicly only fails if we just copy and paste the existing combat mechanics of established games over and over again. I think of the holy trinity more in terms of "what I do" instead of "what my character is capable of", which basicly means action combat. If I am able to actively block and evade enemy attacks, then basicly everyone can be a tank if he has the player skill to do so. If healing others requires a lot of forethought and a good oversight over the battlefield, then basicly every player can be a healer if he has the skill to do so. That's why I love action combat in MMOs. And that's also why Wildstar had such a great headstart. It directly involves player skill into the power formula. If you are better at avoiding attacks and aiming your skills properly, you perform better than the guy that has the same character and the same gear, but isn't as skilled as you. And that's what makes a game engaging, imho. So I'm all in for breaking up the holy trinity in terms of class design - as long as it still exists in terms of roles to play in combat.

My latest try on an ironman in tactical games was XCOM, where I did an ironman + hardest difficulty run. As the difficulty curve of that game is pretty much inverted (The game is much harder at the beginning of the game than it is at the end of the game), I stopped halfway through and called it a success. However, I had to restart from the beginning at least 10 times, as I kept losing my men at the first terror mission (stupid melee chrysalids with ridicolous damage output and I-will-move-first zombie spawns). After that, it was pretty much a walk in the park. Ironman modes are incredibly fun if 2 conditions are met: 1) The game is almost bugfree and has no bugs that can insta-gib your progress 2) Challenges in the game, despite being difficult, are always fair These conditions are more than often neglected and the reason why ironman modes can be a frustrating experience. If there is too much RNG involved or there are effects that can only be avoided by extreme metagaming knowledge (i.e. knowing exactly the order in which spells get casted by enemies in BG2), then a game is usually frustrating. XCOM: Enemy unknown basicly violates both conditions: the vanilla game not only had gamebreaking bugs, but it also relied a lot on RNG aswell. If you keep missing that 97% shot three rounds in a row, you know what I mean... That being said, for some odd reason, I kept restarting said ironman attempt over and over again. I don't know why. Maybe it's because it's such a rare addition in modern games. When I finally had my first plasma rifles in impossible ironman (which is the point where the game basicly turns incredibly easy, no matter the difficulty setting), I was literally standing up, shouting at my screen: "Who is laughing now, you mother****ing bitch of an unfair RNG-game? Who ****ing kicked your ass?". I can't praise obsidian enough for their decision to implement an ironman mode right from the beginning... I will probably play my first game halfway through and then start over in ironman mode (I don't want to know all important story decisions before playing my first ironman, but I want to have some founded meta knowledge about the gameplay mechanics first).

Bummer.

I think the main reason we are not seeing something like this is that developers regard gamers as a potential threat to their precious creations. Every sandbox aspect of MMOs is limited to absurdity in order to prevent players "abusing" it, whatever that means. They won't see the greater picture behind this: abuse and especially grief-play of sandbox mechanics is what actually makes a game memorable. What you will remember ten years after playing a game isn't running a cookie-cutter dungeon to get your numbers rising. You will remember the bugs. You will remember the unfair things and how you overcome them; You will remember that moment when a huge amount of players united against the guild that crossed the line... It's kind of like in the "make love, not warcraft" episode from south park. You need a villian and a personal agenda when playing an MMO. And what actually makes a better villian to hate and fight than a cheater? The feeling when finally finding a way to beat the crap out of that person that tormented you will stay in your mind forever. Game developers nowadays seem to hate metagaming from the heart. They don't see that metagaming is essential for a real MMO experience. EVE online is ALL about metagaming. It's about finding ways to achieve what you want to achieve. If that involves infiltrating a guild with real persons to destroy it OVER THE COURSE OF MONTHS, then players will do it. That's why EVE has written gaming history. Because the developers did not fear the abuse of the sandbox elements. Because the developers did not fear the idea of having certain players building some kind of dictatorship to rule the server. If things get way out of control, you can always have a gamemaster interventing. That's what game masters are for. It's just that MMO producers kinda regard game masters as a service hotline not as actual game masters. I still have my hopes that some day, another game will come that revives the virtues of real sandbox gaming. A Pen & Paper experience in the form of an MMORPG. With *real* game masters actually moderating the game, not just being a human anti-bot-algorithm. I've played WoW for years (until the release of Wrath of the Lichking). You know what I still remember of the game, 6 years after quitting? It wasn't the quests or the actual gameplay. It was two-manning Nefarian's Lair, a 40 people raid instance as naked level 60 warlocks by abusing DOTs and the geometry of the dungeon to kite mobs around endlessly. It was finding ways to mountaintops and areas that are meant to be un-reachable. It was using a glitch to get to a part of the landscape that was later named "GM island" (even though you never saw a GM there). The infectious desease from Zul'Gurub that due to a glitch remained on pets and thus infected the main cities, wiping out half of the server population. And I remember the endless pile of corpses and open PVP around Tarren's Mill. I remember the endless battles between alliance and horde players at the blackrock instance hubs back in vanilla times. Those things were that made WoW fun and memorable. Those things were what made players emotionally involved in the game. Blizzard patched them out. All of them.

For people who are concerned about spoilers, the Backer Beta will feature a number of areas near the middle of the game that do not have strong connections (if any) to the critical path. In addition to the characters you create, we are also likely to feature a roster of pre-made characters who are not companions. We don't have any interest in using the Backer Beta to give out story info. We'd much rather have people play it and throttle the mechanics, UI, etc. so we can make fixes and adjustments. You sir - and all of the PoE team - should feel standing-ovation'ed now. Unfortunately, I noticed the project after the kickstarter campaign finished, so I can't participate in the beta, but I will definitely watch let's plays as soon as they are out. I hope there will be someone who isn't a totally annoying douchebag LP'ing it.

Man, that would be really cool if an MMO out there would actually be *sandbox*. There is not even a single MMO out there that truly deserves the sandbox badge. There's some promising MMOs coming and existing that combine sandbox elements with themepark elements (Neverwinter with it's dungeon builder tool, Archeage with its focus on crafting and maybe Black Desert), but those experiences are still extremely limited. Not even Everquest Next is going to be truly sandbox, as you can only build & create inside your own personal space and there's no permanent damage to the world. The only game that can be considered a real sandbox MMO is Eve Online. Which is also the reason why this game is still healthy as **** and the only subscription based MMO with a steadily rising player number. Archeage could have been the dealbreaker. But they failed, as crafting and housing in Archeage is completely destroyed by the min-maxing crowd, literally herding goats.

Here's what I thought when entering the thread: "Wow, this is a HUGE amount of text... looks like this guy has some good rea- ... nope, just a romance thread."

Now that came out of the blue... Will there be an NDA on beta players?

I see what you did there.

O_o

Once I got my hands on the game, I will probably roll a classic MIGHT/DEX/CON warrior just to try out and get used to the combat mechanics. Then, after completing like the first couple of quests, I will restart the game and try out a completely different warrior build, based on off-stats and see what I like better (interrupt-build?). Then I will go with what seems more fun after the first couple of hours. Given the information available on: http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Companion, my party will look like this on my first playthrough: PC: Warrior ... going with the tropes for fantasy leads, my first PC simply has to be a warrior. Adventurer's Hall buddy #1: A druid, simply because none of the confirmed companions is a druid. Cadegund: Priest ... cause you will probably need one. Aloth: Wizard Edér: Thief Pallegina: Paladin or Sagani: Ranger, depending on which character I like more personality-wise when I first encounter them. I'll definitely play the campaign on hard mode right from the get-go. Ain't nobody got time for medium difficulty. On my second playthrough, I will make a Thief PC and an adventurer's hall priest and take all the other characters I left out on my first playthrough. And this time on ironmode.